


Trouble I'm In

by arwens_light



Series: Blood on My Hands [1]
Category: The Last of Us
Genre: Ellie on her own, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-24
Updated: 2017-03-24
Packaged: 2018-10-09 23:09:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10423878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arwens_light/pseuds/arwens_light
Summary: For a horrifying moment, she waited as she stared down into the dark elevator shaft, afraid he was dead. But several long seconds later, he popped up out of the water, groaning and spluttering.





	

For a horrifying moment, she waited as she stared down into the dark elevator shaft, afraid he was dead. But several long seconds later, he popped up out of the water, groaning and spluttering.

"Are you okay?" she yelled down at him. It was difficult to see him in the darkness of the elevator shaft.

She could faintly hear him groan. "Yeah, yeah, I'm alright - are you?"

"No!" she exclaimed, knowing she was being a bit dramatic. "You scared the shit out of me!"

A scoff and then splashing. There was no way he would be able to climb out of the flooded elevator shaft.

She pushed down the panic building in her chest. "I'm... I'm gonna climb down there, ok?" she hollered, swinging her leg over the ledge and into the empty elevator shaft. Now, just to find a firm hand-hold...

"No!"

Ellie stopped, confused. _No?_

"Stay up there!" Joel yelled at her. She could dimly see him treading water several floors below where she was perched. "I'll make my way up to you," he said firmly, though not enough to reassure her.

"Don't do anything stupid!" she yelled back, a cold fear creeping into her chest. _Don't leave me!_ she wanted to scream at him. It was stupid, she had only known him for a couple days, but he was all she had right now... and bad things seemed to happen to the people that she started to care about... so why should this be any different?

With a deep breath of stale air, Joel disappeared beneath the surface of the murky waters. Ellie following the ripples he made as he dove deeper, searching for another way out. She listened for what felt like a long while, straining to hear a sound of distress, a shout of pain, a yell of fear. But there was nothing. He was gone and she was alone.

She allowed herself a few more seconds to collect herself before she moved. She was truly alone now, but chances were someone in the building had heard the elevator come crashing down, so she better get the hell out of there. She was on a new floor of the hotel, the stairwells going both up and down blocked with molded mattresses and broken furniture. A window to her left was broken, allowing the soft sunlight into the poorly lit hallway.

Finally, she heard the sound of muffled voices, alerting her of an approaching danger, urging her to hide. She scrambled to the first hotel room with an open door and pressed herself to the far wall, hand clamped tight over her mouth in an attempt to control her loud breathing. Her heart hammered in her ears so loud she was worried they might hear.

Several sets of footsteps passed her room. "Damn building is falling apart," one voice muttered, agitated.

"I bet it was an infected, fell down the elevator shaft," another voice commented, sounding bored.  

"Both of you shut the hell up," a third voice growled, his tone low. "The road crew called in that an old man and a little girl got through - so shut up and keep an eye out."

Ellie's stomach heaved dangerously. _I have to get out of here._ She sunk down into a squat, hidden by the dresser. _What do I do? Where do I go?_ She closed her eyes, trying to collect her racing thoughts. Most of the floors looked like they followed a similar lay out. _That means I should be able to sneak through the bathroom to the next room..._

The second voice was talking again as she made her way toward the bathroom, low and slow like she had seen Joel do. "Well I'll be damned - looks like the elevator cables snapped."

"It's not surprising," the first voice answered, "like I said before, whole damn place is falling apart." The sound of glass shattering against a wall made Ellie freeze for a moment. Her skin crawled as she shook off her nerves and pushed forward, crouch-walking as fast as she dared into the adjacent hotel suite.

"What did I fucking say?" the third voice snarled in a hushed tone.

Ellie could faintly hear mumbled sorrys as she made it into the next hotel room. Glancing around, she finally rose out of her crouch, muscles still tensed. Softly, she tiptoed into the next room where empty beer bottles and trash of various forms lined the furniture.

She stared at a brown bottle for a half a second before wrapping her slender fingers around the neck. Ellie shifted the weight of the bottle in her hand and tried to steady her breathing. If she did this right, she could create a distraction that allowed her to sneak further down the hall without interference from these morons. If she screwed up though... the results could only be disastrous.

Deciding to take her chances, she lined up her throw, aiming for the solid wall through two hotel bathrooms and a suite into the first room she had snuck from.

  
_Here goes nothing_ , she thought, before lobbing the bottle through the air. It didn't quite make it to the first room, the bottle curving slightly before it ricocheted off the door frame of the farthest bathroom and exploded into a cascade of glass shards.

Ellie ducked into the door frame as she heard exclamations from the men down the hall and slipped out as soon as she was sure they had gone far enough inside of the room not to see her in the corridor.  

She ran as quickly as she dared around the corner and down another hall, stopping just short of a common room where a barrel burned to provide light in the dimly lit space. She dove into a room and hid behind the door as a man ran down the hall to investigate the yelling. The breeze from an open window made her shiver as it cooled the sweat on her skin.

She crawled over to the window and glanced out, trying to take in her surrounds while she still listened for the commotion in the hallway. Outside the window was a small rooftop courtyard, which led to a fireescape. As she weighed her options of whether to venture outside or take her changes inside the hotel to meet back up with Joel, the voices suddenly grew louder and sounded far more angry.

Ellie hoisted her leg over the windowsill and pushed herself through, dropping to the ground with a soft thud. She heard the men inside throwing open doors and walking through the hotel rooms, searching for her ghost. Not wanting to stay exposed, she scrambled on her hands and toes over to the fireescape and dropped down the ladder without a second glance.

Finally feeling safe for a moment, she paused, breathing in the fresh air. Her racing heart slowly evened out, the cool breeze soothing her hot skin like a salve.  She gently uncurled her fingers from the rusted rung she had been clinging to and carefully made her way down the ladder to the platform. The metal groaned softly under her added weight. She was now eye-level with the top of a tree, the green leaves rustling in the gentle wind that blew in from the nearby river. This moment was almost, oddly, peace.

Ellie allowed herself the selfish luxury of several long, sunny moments before the guilt overtook her. _Keep moving, gotta get to Joel somehow..._

The fire escape abruptly ended about three stories up from the ground level. No way in hell she could just jump down that far and walk away without a scratch... She would get a sprained ankle at the very least, a cracked skull or broken leg at worst. That meant going back into the hotel. Ellie climbed back up to the fourth floor and found a window with some loose boards. As quietly as she could, she worked two of the boards free and slipped back into the poorly lit building. She pocketed the nails, making a mental note to give them to Joel for some of his make-shift bombs.

She carefully made her way around until she came to an area which looked like dining room or maybe a café? Honestly, she really didn't know. She hadn't had much exposure to hotels and restaurants in the Boston QZ; her military academy hadn't allowed for much free time so mostly she just kept her head down and focused it on making it through... if she wasn't sneaking off campus with Riley. Shaking her head, she placed Riley's memory away into a special box in her mind and locked it away for another time. Right now, she needed to concentrate on finding Joel.  

Ellie realized that she appeared to be on the second level of whatever the hell this place was, because there were several split-levels and balconies overlooking booths, tables and overturned chairs.

Nearby, a loud splash drew her attention. Hesitantly, she crept toward the noise, squeezing along the edge of a deteriorating floor. The sound of something - or someone? - thrashing in the water grew louder. She peeked over the railing to see a bald man holding someone under water, drowning them. A glimpse of a familiar green shirt, dark hair...

Ellie's stomach sank as she recognized Joel. _Oh shit_. Her fear quickly turned to anger and she acted without much thinking. All she knew is that she had to save him. She quickly twisted her body over the ledge and dropped a much more manageable distance onto the dining room floor. She winced at the soft thud she made hitting the rotting floor boards. She was thankful that the bald man was too distracted trying to kill Joel to notice her approach. She had planned to stab the bastard, hand already sliding into her back pocket for her switchblade, when she saw the gleam of metal through the shallow waters. Joel's fingers were reaching, straining for his gun, but the man on top of him grabbed his arm, restraining him. 

Ellie found herself reaching for the gun, the weapon feeling much heavier than she had anticipated as she drew it from the water. Without hesitation, she extended her arm, aimed and shot the man in the temple.

The man's head snapped back with the soft spray of red mist. Ellie tasted copper on her tongue. Joel emerged from the water, gasping for air as he sputtered and choked. The man hit the floor with a wet thud and then Joel's head whipped toward Ellie, shock and confusion written in his eyes before it transformed into anger.

Ellie stood, hand trembling with the weight of the gun, panting. "Man," she mumbled, "I shot the hell out of that guy."


End file.
